(Spoilers!)
Slate is happy to provide a whole collection of tweets capturing just how badly people were upset by last night’s episode.
So this may be a good time to link to Matt Zoller Seitz, in NYMag, defending the series and telling snobs to “Look Past the Dragons“:
… Nearly a decade after Peter Jackson won Oscars for a film series about wizards and hobbits, fantasy is still seen as disreputable nerd bait rather than a legitimate mainstream genre. That should change this year, and if it doesn’t, fans can cry foul. Thrones was always solid and sometimes awesome, but its third season represents a giant leap forward in ambition and execution…
Its achievements are all the more remarkable when you consider the degree of difficulty involved. Thrones is one of the most expensive series in TV history. And it’s based on books with a large, loyal following; it has to split the difference between honoring the text while making it accessible to a wide audience and reserving the right to change things for sophistication’s sake. It does all this while following dozens of major characters, highborn and lowborn, through plots and counterplots, alliances and betrayals, attacks and retreats, still managing to communicate every character’s eccentricity and humanity and never devolving into a three-dimensional flowchart with actors.
It does all these things without breaking a sweat, and its mastery of classical visual storytelling is the wellspring of its strength. Thrones’ filmmaking is direct and clean, balancing efficiency and beauty, but every now and then it throws in a dazzling visual flourish: a majestically slow pan following a crack as it spreads across the icy Wall, unleashing an avalanche; a Gone With the Wind–style pullback that frames lovers Jon Snow (Kit Harrington) and Ygritte (Rose Leslie) against a verdant valley; a tormented prisoner’s castration obscured by a sudden loss of screen focus that turns the frame into a collage of pulsing, bruiselike splotches; the cut-to-black that ends “Walk of Punishment,” a shot lopped off as brutally as the sword hand of Jamie Lannister (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau); an overhead shot of a young dragon flambéing the man who stupidly thought that he owned it like a pet…..
Wapiti
You can tell which viewers read the books.
The Sailor
The NBA is fixed for big money/big market teams.
The players aren’t in on it, but the refs sure are.
daverave
I thought this was a post about Bruins v. Penguins
joel hanes
If the audience hasn’t yet twigged that GoT is a tragedy, meant to evoke pity and terror, this was a clue.
Aeschylus and Shakespeare would have understood the Red Wedding.
Those brought up on Disney, not so much.
pokeyblow
I watch very little TV. But I’m curious. Why do these cable companies seem able to produce such high-interest, compelling shows so easily, compared to the networks?
Is it the lack of commercials? Loosened obscenity standards? Are the networks desperately working to please out-of-the-loop older people who don’t have email?
schrodinger's cat
Don’t get HBO, so don’t get the fuss.
Baud
@schrodinger’s cat:
Neither do I. But I learned from that video that only white people watch GoT.
Omnes Omnibus
@schrodinger’s cat: I don’t get HBO but my dad DVRs it and makes me watch when I go visit every few weeks. I have a good idea what I will be doing part of Father’s Day weekend. Luckily, I have read the books so I don’t get spoilerized.
Someguy
Fantasy is the genre that swallowed Sci Fi. It’s bad medieval history inbred with teen girl bodice rippers, and magik. Fuck Fantasy.
Todd
@pokeyblow:
An absence of ossified organizational charts larded up with people who’ve spent thirty years working under people who spent thirty years working under people who spent…
YoohooCthulhu
@pokeyblow:
I suppose you mean cable networks. I think the issue is that the business model is different. No ads, they make money on subscription fees, kickbacks, and dvd sales. So they can spend lots of money on “prestige” projects that are not guaranteed to drive super high ratings but get them lots of critical acclaim.
I think it’s mostly just being free from the “how will this play in peoria?” question. The episode last night is the sort of thing you’d never seen on on air network tv, because it’s not lowest-common-denominator enough.
The Sailor
@daverave: It’s an open thread, get over it.
Eastriver
@schrodinger’s cat: @schrodinger’s cat: @schrodinger’s cat: @schrodinger’s cat: @schrodinger’s cat: @schrodinger’s cat:
That’s like bragging about not eating dinner.
aangus
@joel hanes:
Ding, ding, ding!
We have a winner.
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
I read the first book, then skimmed the web for the plots of the others, because it just wasn’t a series I was committed to reading.
Amir Khalid
C’mon, it’s only a TV show.
/ducks to avoid flying objects
schrodinger's cat
Did anyone see Parade’s End? Was it any good. I have seen some good reviews.
ETA: I saw a copy at my local Library, was not sure whether to commit to the 5 or 6 hours of viewing.
Mr Stagger Lee
@pokeyblow: Basically you answered it, if the networks could get the sex you seen in say Spartacus(Starz) they would do it. But imagine the opening scene of House of Lies played on regular network TV. You think the Cheerios ad caused heads to explode?
AHH onna Droid
@Someguy: wash out your mouth, kid, and dont come back until you’ve read some Samuel Delaney
Hill Dweller
@schrodinger’s cat:
FWIW, I liked it.
sherparick
@joel hanes: To see a bit of the inspiration, check out this from Act IV, Scene 1, Shakespeaere (“Something Wicked This Way Comes.”) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3nyHy4s6ew
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: The books caught me; I ended up staying up quite late because I would finish a chapter and go “Oooh, the next one is a Tyrion/Arya chapter; I’ll just read this one more and then turn out the light,” and so on. I like Tyrion and Arya chapters in case you hadn’t guessed.
Zam
@joel hanes: Ha, true. I was just finishing up Storm of Swords when people began telling me I have to read Harry Potter. Read the first book found it a bit too childish, they told me that it gets way more adult and dark in the later books. Pretty hard to call that dark after asoiaf.
Omnes Omnibus
@joel hanes: Also, GRRM used the War of the Roses as inspiration. That was not a “nice” period of time.
NotMax
With so many similar threads within so short a time, it is now Game of Trolling.
Joel (Macho Man Randy Savage)
@joel hanes: Robb Stark was a goddamn moron anyways.
Anne Laurie
@Someguy:
Been an sf fan for more than fifty years now, dude, but let’s be honest. Sci-Fi is a subset of fantasy with a more restricted range of possibilities and an emphasis on machinery and “modern life”.
If you’ve never read Kurt Vonnegut’s essay on “Science Fiction” (collected in Wampeters, Foma & Granfalloons), look it up.
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
The books are obviously well written. I guess one of the things about telling a “realistic” story was that I found the plot a little rambling, because that’s kind of how real life is.
AHH onna Droid
I hope aimai or someone else knowledgeable on PPACA is still up and online. Is it true that you lose your subsidy in the exchange if your employers plan is ‘ compliant’? I thought existing plans were grandfathered. Mine has sucked for a few years now and they are utter douchebags on birth control meds according to my coworkers. What about spouse and children? Bc right now my coworkers have their kids on medicaid. It sucks but the employer family plan is too high for us. ccoworkers
Keith G
I am about 4-5 years behind event series viewing. I will take something like Mad Men or Justified and watch the first 2 or 3 seasons in a couple of weeks. Then move on. If there are more seasons available, I will go back after watching other stuff.
One exception is the Walking Dead. I took a break 3/4th of the way through season 2 and haven’t gone back. I guess I will, but it might be a while.
GoT? In a year or two at this rate.
Baud
@AHH onna Droid:
This could well be wrong, but I don’t think people who have access to “compliant” employer plans can participate in the exchange. Don’t know about family members of employees, however.
pokeyblow
@Keith G: I tried to watch Walking Dead. I realize Night of the Living Dead was new and shocking, a long time ago, but can’t comprehend how anyone can watch ridiculous people slogging around as zombies without grimacing and reaching for the remote.
sherparick
Act IV, Scene 2 & 3, MacBeth http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPXeYi44TNk
However, Shakespeare only kept his audience waiting for on more Act before MacDuff “An’ “Birrham Wood come to High Dunsinane.”
Omnes Omnibus
@sherparick: The War of the Roses, prelude through Bosworth, lasted a good 35 years or so.
schrodinger's cat
I wonder when Tom Levenson will post some artwork with the fat orange kitteh. I think the orange boy kitteh looks my ginger kitteh’s long lost brother.
NotMax
@Anne Laurie
Ellison, Straczynski, etc., parsing the differences between sci-fi and science fiction.
Todd
@Keith G:
I’m usually good for three years on a series, with two exceptions, those being Sons of Anarchy and Justified. Those are nothing short of great, and I can’t get enough of them.
joel hanes
@Omnes Omnibus:
Agreed: the War of the Roses was very much a game of thrones.
Have you read Sharon Kaye Penman’s wonderful The Sunne In Splendor?
Excellent (IMHO) and quite accessible historical fiction.
Better fiction about roughly the same period:
Dorothy Dunnett’s superb Nicolo and Lymond series, set in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries respectively, are nearly as brutally willing to kill important characters. These are harder to start, but repay the effort — (again IMHO) some of the finest historical fiction ever penned. More absorbing than Song of Ice and Fire if you’re part of the target audience and can overcome the first hundred pages — one of the Nicolo books actually broke my heart, just as if I had been betrayed by someone I loved and trusted.
I suspect that GRRM has read the Dunnett. Look at the Lymond series titles in her Wikipedia entry …
mellowjohn
@Keith G: i think i gave up on “walking dead” (with the 2nd half of season to on DVR) when i realized i was rooting for the zombies. they were much more well-developed and more interesting characters.
PsiFighter37
Last night’s episode is still crazy in my mind. Ned Stark getting shafted by Joffrey was less surprising than the utter bloodletting last night. I think part of it has to do with the fact that they built up these characters for a few seasons – as pretty major characters – and now they’re just a footnote.
Redshift
Hah! Considering that the usual reaction to “fans crying foul” is for them to be portrayed once again as whiny nerds dressed in poorly-made costumes, what difference would that make?
Even after SF and fantasy have pretty much taken over the world of entertainment, there’s little decline in portraying them as “disreputable nerd bait rather than a legitimate mainstream genre.” I’ll believe it when I see it.
Keith G
@AHH onna Droid: Read this…it might help.
jake the snake
@Someguy:
I tend to agree, but not quite as strongly. It is depressing to look at the Sci-fi book sections and see 75% of it fantasy.
Omnes Omnibus
@joel hanes: I have read The Sunne in Splendor. I have not read the Dunnett books but I will make a note of them.
It is also worth pointing out some of the other European rulers in the late 15th century: the Borgias, Vlad Tepes, Ivan the Terrible. Louis XI. These were not constitutional monarchs who took disputes to mediation.
schrodinger's cat
@Eastriver: No need to invoke my name so many times. I am not bragging, I just don’t get any cable where I live, only what I get on my digital antenna. When I had cable, HBO was one of my favorite channels.
MazeDancer
@joel hanes:
Dame Dunnett’s series of books are among the most delicious ever written.
Anyone who hasn’t read them has 11 great novels ahead of them. As does everyone who has read them, because everyone ends up reading them again.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@jake the snake: Mostly, fantasy has a higher percentage of crap, though there are exceptions on both sides. If you can’t find good science fiction to read you aren’t looking very hard.
NotMax
@jake the snake
Made me think about how pretty much everyone who has read lots of science fiction has a favorite book or story (or perhaps rather one that has stayed with you over the years) which is lesser know, little known, or barely known*.
Yours?
Will start off with a short novel and with a short story.
All the Colors of Darkness by Lloyd Biggle, Jr.
Let’s Be Frank by Brian Aldiss
*as opposed to once acclaimed but now historically obscure. In that category, would put:
Star Maker by Olaf Stapledon
M31
@Omnes Omnibus:
Ah yes, Louis XI, whose nickname was “The Universal Spider” for his web of spies and informants spread throughout the realm.
Keith G
@Baud: You are essentially correct, but within the law are “affordability tests” so that a company will not be seen as providing coverage if premiums are above a range of a given per cent of employee income.
Cacti
Since it’s an open thread…
Our “Free
MumiaBradley Manning” contingent at BJ has been strangely silent on the first day of his court martial.I wonder if it has anything to do with the evidence that he leaked the personal information of 74,000 US military personnel.
Darkrose
@Omnes Omnibus: My problem was when I realized I was skipping everything but the Arya chapters. Given how everything else had gone, I had no reason to believe she was going to survive the series, so I quit reading.
M31
And on the ‘not nice’ periods of history, the book “The Better Angels of our Nature” by Steven Pinker has the lovely statistic that in 1325, the percentage of male British aristocracy that died by violence was 25%.
gbear
Tonight, like every night since my cat discovered the little fabric ball in the cat toy bin, we’re playing throw the ball, chase the ball, bring the ball back, throw the ball, chase the ball, bring the ball back, throw the ball, chase the ball, bring the ball back, throw the ball, chase the ball, bring the ball back, throw the ball, chase the ball, bring the ball back, throw the ball, chase the ball, bring the ball back….
I cannot wear him out. If I ignore him too long he drops the ball on my keyboard. My other cat thinks this is the weirdest thing she’s ever seen.
max
@Someguy:Fantasy is the genre that swallowed Sci Fi.
Actually Star Wars is the genre that swallowed SF. Space opera killed the printed text star.
It’s bad medieval history inbred with teen girl bodice rippers, and magik. Fuck Fantasy.
Well, that’s the thing about GoT: he isn’t doing *bad* (as in RenFaire) medieval history – he’s doing a pretty realistic (as these things go) version.
(And, in fact, I finally worked out the equivalencies here:
Targaryans == Normans/Plantagenets (and thus, Dragonstone == Normandy)
Aegon the Conqueror == William the Conqueror
Aerys the Mad == Henry VI
Rhaegar == Edward of Lancaster
Baratheons == Yorkists
Robert (17 years on the throne, died a fat drunk) == Edward IV (died after 19 years on the throne, grossly fat)
Renly == Clarence
Stannis == Richard (the III, historical version)
Where it gets sticky is with the Lannisters. They’re subbing for the Woodvilles but they aren’t the Woodvilles. Elizabeth Woodville was the queen of Edward IV, but she was at least nice enough. So Cersei is subbing for Elizabeth, but has the character of the Shakespearean Richard III (‘I am determined to prove the villain’), and Joffrey and Tommen are alternate Princes in the Tower. It makes me wonder if part of the genesis of the character of Cersei is essentially the question, ‘What if the Shakespearean Richard the III had been a woman?’
The religion and the planet itself are different, but not that different. That seems to be another formative question for the books: ‘What if the medieval beliefs about magic were true?’ Oh, and High Valerian is Latin, so Low Valerian is French & Italian.)
max
[‘Anyways.’]
NotMax
@M31
Primogeniture is a bitch.
Keith G
@Cacti: My my. Now that truly did cross the line. I am outraged!!
Roger Moore
@Zam:
I think the dark side of Harry Potter comes out more precisely because the first couple of books are more childish. Once you figure out that George R.R. Martin likes killing or maiming characters as soon as he makes them sympathetic, the mayhem loses its power to shock. But nobody expects a series that starts out as a silly and lighthearted as Harry Potter to conclude with quite so many characters dead or disfigured.
joel hanes
@NotMax:
a favorite book or story (or perhaps rather one that has stayed with you over the years) which is lesser know, little known, or barely known
SF :
novel Earth Abides, George R. Stewart
novel The Sheep Look Up John Brunner
novel Stand On Zanzibar John Brunner
novel Lord Of Light Roger Zelazny
novel A Canticle For Liebowitz, Walter Miller
short novel A Rose For Ecclesiastes Roger Zelazny
short story “King Of The Hill”, Chad Oliver, in one of Ellison’s Dangerous Visions anthologies
not SF :
novel Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up To Me Richard Farina
martha
@joel hanes:
I love Dorothy Dunnett’s books. OMG. Simply the very best. Actually it’s time to reread the Niccolo books. It’s been too long.
MikeJ
@M31:
Those truly were the good old days.
Violet
I ate a dinner entirely from the Farmer’s Market or my own garden. Pork chops from the farmers market. Potatoes and green beans from my garden. Blackberries from my garden for dessert. YUM!
M31
I love the book “Hexwood” by Diana Wynne Jones. It’s a very strange multiverse/modern day/galactic/Arthurian hybrid, and it starts out like a young adult book but isn’t, and the evil characters are truly creepy.
Jay in Oregon
GODDAMN IT, NOT EVERYONE HAS WATCHED THE SHOW YET!
I can’t stay up late on Sunday nights to watch TV and given the subject matter I can’t exactly watch it on the bus or at work. And I’m sure I’m not the only one.
Good God, I realize that the East Coast couldn’t shut up on Twitter and Facebook about what happened, and news outlets were hurriedly posting their stories before the show even aired the Central time zone—let alone on the West Coast—but it’s barely been 24 hours since the show aired.
(And yes, I know they are books; I’ve been waiting to read them until after I watch the show so I can enjoy the show for what it is, and have the suspense of not knowing everything that happens in advance.)
Anne Laurie
@NotMax:
In my case, that would be an anthologist — Groff Conklin. (Which even sounds like an sf character’s name, doesn’t it?) Conklin was instrumental in the post-WWII sf transition from “ephemeral stories that disappeared as one month’s pulp magazine replaced another” to “popular lit worth re-reading, by name-brand authors”. A generation of Boomers grew up looking for Conklin’s name on the spine in our local library and/or bookstore, because he had a real gift for finding gold — both new authors & older ones whose stuff was on the verge of disappearing.
aangus
‘Game of Thrones’ author George R.R. Martin: Why he wrote The Red Wedding
http://insidetv.ew.com/2013/06/02/game-of-thrones-author-george-r-r-martin-why-he-wrote-the-red-wedding/
James E. Powell
Killing off significant characters is one quick way to move the plot along for the survivors – e.g., Ned’s execution set quite a bit of the story in motion. Also too, if they all stayed alive, it would be much more difficult to keep track of them all.
Joel (Macho Man Randy Savage)
You wanna talk about “not happy times” in history, I just finished reading an English translation of the “Romance of the Three Kingdoms”. Seems like a few million people die before that one’s done. And that’s well before the Yongle Emperor came around.
Darkrose
@Roger Moore:
You know, I think you just nailed my problem with ASOIaF: by the time I got the the Red Wedding, I felt like GRRM crossed the line from realistic darkness to gratuitous overkill. Yes, I get it: this story is set in a horrible world with horrible people where horrible things happen. And I get that he’s going for gritty realism as opposed to the high fantasy Tolkien ripoffs that have dominated the genre for so long. But as a reader, for fuck’s sake, man, throw me a bone once in a while! Give me a character I don’t want to see thrown off a cliff; maybe have something good happen to them without me bracing for the inevitable bloodbath. If I want completely unrelenting awfulness, I’ll just read about the Congressional Republicans.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Is tonight the start of The Daily Show With John Oliver?
MikeJ
@Darkrose: “Realistic” doesn’t have to mean the worst possible outcome. When lazy writers just want to fuck with readers, they just say “realistic”.
Anoniminous
One of the things Art is all about: intense emotional reaction. American Pop Culture, of which American TV is Exhibit A, is saturated, even diseased, with sentimentality. George R.R. Martin will have none of it.
Good for him.
joel hanes
@NotMax:
Apologies; I see that almost all my previous recommendations fall into “were once acclaimed but are now less known”.
True-life adventure :
We Die Alone, Howarth
The true story of a WWII Norwegian expatriate attempt to infiltrate Nazi-occupied northern Norway.
Everyone I know who has read this book remembers a couple of the events very clearly, even decades later.
Hill Dweller
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Stewart is still hosting, and the first bit was as unfunny as the shit they were airing before their week long vacation.
CaseyL
I don’t get HBO, so all I know about GoT are the snippets people post on YouTube, plus the commentaries.
Likening GoT to the War of the Roses is brilliant, though what GoT lacks is any sense that anyone has a concept of “governance.” As bad as the Yorks and Lancasters (and Plantagenets before them, Tudors after them, and so on) were, they did realize there was more to ruling than orgies, massacres, and plotting against everything that moves.
(The only exception seems to be Danaerys, who has a reason for collecting an army to march on King’s Landing besides reclaiming the throne: she wants to free the oppressed and enslaved. She might also be the last one standing after the other royal families all kill each other off.)
Regarding network TV being too timid to run very adventurous series, though, I have one word: Hannibal.
Rachel in Portland
@PsiFighter37: They are not just a footnote. The North remembers.
fuckwit
After watching the reaction video, I am TOTALLY GLAD that GoT did what they did.
We viewers are used to NOT REALLY CARING when people die in film or TV. It’s dehumanizing, it’s unhealthy, it’s unreal, to have that safety. We’re pampered little Americans, and only the bad guys die. We think the Great Daddy In The Sky will save our precious characters that we love. Only the bad ones, so we sit there and fuck yeah as our hero dispatches all the bad guys.
Death is not like that. Death is horrible. Death takes the GOOD people. Violence kills people we care about. It is gut-wrenching, miserable, infuriating. It’s not fucking entertainment… and if stuff like this turns people off, best to explore why.
Really though, get a grip, audiences. Think for a moment about the end of Hamlet. That was fucking 400 years ago. The end of Reservoir Dogs wasn’t new, it was from Shakesepeare. As for GoT, I haven’t seen it, so I’m commenting based on what I’m seeing in that reaction video, and it looks like, fine, break people out of their comfort zones.a
Mnemosyne
@MikeJ:
Seconded. Fads for unhappy endings come and go, but they’re no more “realistic” than the happy (or at least non-death) ones.
pokeyblow
Wild story:
http://www.suntimes.com/20513939-761/dna-test-unravels-long-solved-baby-snatching-case.html
Mnemosyne
Also, too, in honor of this thread, one of my new favorite Cracked lists:
6 Technologies Conspicuously Absent from Sci-Fi Movies
Today’s epic bicycle thread figures into #6 and made me think, “Hey, yeah, wait, why is that?!”
Anoniminous
@CaseyL:
I take it you haven’t read the books, so all I’ll say is when Martin gets into that a whole bunch o’ stuff starts making sense.
joel hanes
@Darkrose:
throw me a bone once in a while!
How do you feel about Chinatown
or The Maltese Falcon?
Or Romeo and Juliet (Tybalt and Mecutio die too)?
Or Hamlet ?
CaseyL
@Anoniminous: I haven’t read them, and probably won’t. I read some of his work ages ago and didn’t care for it. I’m hardly a Pollyanna, but unreserved gloom and doom does nothing for me; and it seems GoT is more of that sort of thing.
RJ in West-of-Fuckall Tejas
@The Sailor: Whiner.
The Heat finally started taking it to the basket and showed that Hibbert is no Hakeem.
Joseph Nobles
My favorite reaction video hands-down (SPOILERS): https://vine.co/v/b3XZMHmxzxh
Mnemosyne
@joel hanes:
If I may be a movie snob for a moment ….
(putting on hat)
Chinatown really works best if you’ve already seen a bunch of film noirs, because then you realize at the same moment that Jake does the terrible genre mistake he made all along — Evelyn is not the femme fatale of the story. It’s that fundamental misunderstanding by Jake that makes the entire thing go south and precipitates the unhappy ending. Without that genre knowledge, it’s just kind of a sad ending that seems to come out of nowhere.
different-church-lady
Which had more carnage: last night’s Game of Thrones or tonight’s game of hockey?
Laur
This show is so boring. I don’t get it.
Anoniminous
@CaseyL:
People’s tastes differ. If you don’t like Martin’s previous books you really GoT (properly “A Song of Ice and Fire.”) So, don’t read it. ;-)
I was addressing the specific point I block quoted. There are many a plotter a’ plottin’ and some of the “gloom and doom” follows directly from that. There’s a real a-HA! moment at the end of “Dance With Dragon” where much becomes clear.
Nerdlinger
@fuckwit: It’s trendy nihilism, nothing more and nothing less. In other words, it is fucking entertainment.
Mornington Crescent
I know this is way off topic and probably old, but the thing with the Texas Rangers’ Adrian Beltre not liking his head rubbed is funny. Here’s Elvis Andrus giving it to him last week.
Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS)
seriously, GoT is overrated fantasy bullshit. welcome to a world that doesn’t worship your fantasy novels. If you want to watch it, fine. But for FSM’s sake, STFU about it. It’s not all that and a bag of chips.
ranchandsyrup
Traveling today and thus had to look at the Juice on my phone with no pie filter.
First WorldBalloon Juice problems. Someone call the Waaaaaahmbulance for me.Anoniminous
@Anoniminous:
er …
“really won’t like”
(Engrish. HDIFW?)
Joel
@Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS): It certainly isn’t Krull.
PurpleGirl
i haven’t read the books and I don’t get HBO, so I haven’t seen the series at all. It’s still interesting to read comments about it though. Carry on.
dewzke
What a bunch of sour grapes we have here. Good books, good show.
mapaghimagsik
I read the books, but haven’t seen the show. do they do the whole “bread and salt” thing with the red wedding?
joel hanes
@mapaghimagsik:
haven’t seen the show. do they do the whole “bread and salt” thing with the red wedding?
Very conspicuously, yes. And the Starks and Tullys look very ill-at-ease until it’s done and acknowledged.
Nerdlinger
@Anoniminous: I couldn’t finish A Dance with Dragons. ASOIAF is no longer epic; it’s just bloated. Martin’s a great prose writer, but for fuck’s sake, someone needs to take a meat cleaver and slice away some of the fat.
Katie5
@Someguy: Agreed. Why else would Star Trek have been handed over to JJ Abrams? It’s eating up sf and spewing out fantasy (or the cheap version of fantasy). But mostly it’s because people don’t want to think about science anymore or about the implications of changing the human condition, the cores of sf.
And @NotMax: agree with joel hanes: Lord of Light and Earth Abides. Also the Trouble with Lichen and Testament of Jessie Lamb
mapaghimagsik
@joel hanes:
Well good. That makes sure future stuff makes more sense.
But about GRRM, I really liked ‘wildcards’ too
Katie5
Long ago GRRM wrote some incredible sf. If you can find it, read A Song for Lya
Another Halocene Human
@joel hanes: I read it, and all I remember besides the fact that the macguffin had to do with heavy water (deuterium), is the author’s declaration that he never had much use for God or religion and when he was in a really bad spot (dunno, think he hurt his leg skiing alone in the mountains) he didn’t feel any different and figured if God existed He’d just be insulted that he was only choosing this moment to pray. I was quite young when I read it and didn’t understand why he went on about that but now that I am older and wiser, I understand.
Another Halocene Human
@Katie5: That implies and optimistic, outward outlook that was destroyed utterly by the Endless Preemptive Wars.
Movies are all comic books (power fantasies) and fantasy (escapism) now. Totally brainless spectacle and ‘splosions. Star Trek without its higher brain functions is no longer Star Trek. It’s just an amusement park ride.
Nerdlinger
@Katie5: http://www.wired.com/underwire/2008/10/amc-network-goe/ Well, AMC crapped out, which is a shame. And burn in hell, JJ Abrams. @NotMax: http://www.amazon.com/Science-Fiction-Hall-Fame-Vol/dp/0765305372/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1370321878&sr=1-2-fkmr0&keywords=short+science+fiction+masterworks The best short sci-fi anthology out there.
Tripod
The writing room has had trouble with multiple through lines and character development from the beginning. Last season was carried by Dinklage, who has the chops to elevate middling mush. The rest of the cast doesn’t.
Redshirt
GRRM feeds on our suffering.
Comrade Dread
Tried my hand at making a broccoli spinach pesto for dinner. I think it needed more cheese, but everyone else seemed to think it was good.
Did broccoli, spinach, Parmesan and Romano cheese, garlic, bacon bits, and olive oil. Mixed it with spaghetti, sun dried tomatoes, mushrooms, olives, and chicken.
joel hanes
@Another Halocene Human: @Another Halocene Human:
(re We Die Alone by Howarth)
Interesting.
You’re the only person I’ve met that remembers the praying and meditations on God, but not where Jan Baalsrud was at that moment, or what he was doing there. For most people it’s the other way ’round.
You might find it rewarding to re-read as an adult.
Mnemosyne
@Tripod:
I still dream of the day when someone will build a Richard III movie around Dinklage. When he did it in New York a few years ago, his performance got rave reviews, but apparently the rest of the cast and the staging was not up to par.
Sadly, I think he is now too old to play the role that was made for him — Miles Vorkosigan.
Katie5
@Another Halocene Human: There’s some small hope in tv, though. Black Mirror is trying to be good sf. In the Flesh takes the implications of zombies on society seriously.
PurpleGirl
@Anne Laurie: Oh yes. Conklin name on the spine is one I looked for all the time. It meant good stories, good reading.
Katie5
@joel hanes: Considering God and meditation, you might be interested in The Sparrow, which is Jesuits in space. A very dark tale of misinterpretation upon First Contact.
Jewish Steel
Ruined by its fans.
Pretty dope.
Yatsuno
@Jewish Steel: That list does not include Doctor Who. I smell bias.
Phoenician in a time of Romans
@Anoniminous:
One of the things Art is all about: intense emotional reaction. American Pop Culture, of which American TV is Exhibit A, is saturated, even diseased, with sentimentality. George R.R. Martin will have none of it.
This is a very astute comment. I’ve just been reading this feed – https://twitter.com/RedWeddingTears – and you’ve struck the nail right on the head.
The commentators are steeped in pop culture sentimentality and feel betrayed that the series isn’t a twee, sentimental narrative. Martin is deliberately not engaging in a typical crafted plot, but showing the impact of competing agendas and the consequences of people’s actions.
Robb Stark deserved to die. He was playing against a master of the political game (Tywin Lannister), he went back on his word and insulted a complete arsehole who was noted as being touchy and dangerous (Walden Frey), and then he made the mistake of trusting way too much in the social niceties of guest right.
His death was perfectly justifiable as a “real world” event. The only problem is that people were expecting GoT to abide by the conventions of sentimentality, whereas the good honorable character doesn’t die (or at least not in such a shitty way).
But, again, Robb Stark deserved to die.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Mnemosyne:
Following the tangent…
Funny, but I just watched it again last night (and I’ve seen it many times), and I take issue with the idea that Gittes thinks that E.M. is a femme fatale. His problem, imo, is that he thinks that he’s in a position to manage the shit flying all around him, whatever it is, not realizing that he’s in Chinatown. I mean, he figures out pretty early on that there’s more to the case than the other woman, that something about the mysterious water dumps could have something to do with H.M.’s death- so E.M. might have everything, something or even nothing at all to do with hubby’s death.
Jewish Steel
@Yatsuno: Ha! You’re right!
Darkrose
@joel hanes: @Darkrose:
You seem to be implying that I can’t take literature where people die. You would be wrong. What I dislike is gratuitous violence for shock value and Crapsack Worlds populated by characters I either actively dislike or don’t care about. Also, I’m really, really tired of authors who use rape as shorthand for character development and incest as a dramatic plot twist.
Mnemosyne
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
Yes, but … his mistaking Evelyn for the femme fatale is part of what gives him that false sense of control. He thinks he understands what’s going on because he deals with adultery cases but, as Noah Cross tells him, “You may think you know what you’re dealing with, but, believe me, you don’t.”
Gittes thinks he’s seen it all, but even he’s blindsided by the real source of the conflict between Cross and Evelyn. Gittes thinks he knows what kind of woman Evelyn is, and she dies for his mistake.
Basically, if Gittes was less determinedly cynical about women and hadn’t wasted so much of his time trying to trap Evelyn in a lie, the movie could have had a much happier ending. It’s his own cynicism that screws everything up.
Darkrose
@Mnemosyne: Wow. I hadn’t thought of that, but he would be fucking awesome as Miles.
Mnemosyne
@Darkrose:
Yep. He could probably do it if they skipped all of the early books and started with Memory or Komarr, but there’s no way that even an actor as good as Dinklage could pull off being 17 years old passing for 30.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Mnemosyne:
I think we’re watching different films here. I don’t see a cynical attitude towards women. I tend to agree with Ebert on this:
[emphasis added]
Gittes’ problem is that he doesn’t know what he doesn’t know. That ain’t cynicism, that’s gullibility.
joel hanes
@Katie5:
( re: The Sparrow )
I’ve read it. Too powerful and depressing to say I loved it; I was shocked by the second half, and finished it with relief that I could stop. I’ll re-read it some day when I’ve got the gumption, and pay more attention, and think about it. I have the sequel sitting in my to-read stack.
joel hanes
@Darkrose:
You seem to be implying that I can’t take literature where people die
Not my intent. Sorry if you’re offended.
I’m interested in how you feel about the deaths in those works, because to my mind, none of the deaths in Game of Thrones (or SoIaF) are any more gratutitous than the deaths of Juliet or Mercutio, or the triumph of evil in Chinatown. I gather you disagree; I was wondering if you could explain a bit about why the deaths of Rob and Catelyn and most of their entourage seems gratuitous to you.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Joseph Nobles: What language is that person speaking?
Arclite
@Jay in Oregon:
Dude, the first goddamned word in this post is (Spoilers!)
You have only yourself to blame.
The prophet Nostradumbass
More spoilery stuff: Remember when Arya was with the Brotherhood Without Banners, and there was the guy who fought The Hound? There’s something about that guy that is relevant to what happened to the people at the Red Wedding. Or one of them, anyway.
piratedan
since we’re on the SF topic once again, can I state again for the record how much I loathe the syfy network and it’s lack of genre driven programming… ty, tyvm. Would rather see them actually cater to fans of the genre instead of making it a hybrid of the USA network, which is kind of like 60% of the networks out there. You would think that it would be easy to get the rights to some classics out there, be it SF or even Fantasy and make some movies or miniseries, instead it’s Ghost Hunters and Paranormal State interspersed with OctoShark, Menace from the Deep. Great programming that’s already out there, Star Trek and all it’s incarnations, BSG, Farscape, Outer Limits, Twilight Zone… hell they could even have a camp night of Lost In Space, The Invaders, Land of the Giants, Buck Rogers, The Prisoner, The Time Tunnel… heck they even have a couple of years worth of MST3K episodes they could re-air. They could run an anime overnight schedule. It’s just maddening.
joel hanes
@Katie5:
A very dark tale of misinterpretation upon First Contact
Have you read Joe Haldeman’s The Forever War ? That’s pretty dark, although the interstellar enemy is as incomprehensible and uncaring as physics.
Elias
Here’s a key detail of GoT. The POV characters do not understand the plot. They do not understand the world they live in. They do not understand magic, which is very real in this world, if subtle.
There are characters who do understand the plot. They are not POV and so the plot remains a mystery. Even having read all the books I’m unsure about the main plot. I can identify some of the real power players and suspect others, but I’m at a loss as to which side is good/evil. This is asoiaf not war of the roses clone.
The stuff that Jon Snow is doing is 10x as important as Robb. If Robb had simply slit his wrists instead of raising an army and marching south, it would’ve helped the realm. Same to the whole war of 5 kings. But there’s a very important reason this war and slaughter is happening. Certain powerful non-POV characters are stoking it for reasons I’m a little unsure of.
NotMax
@joel hanes
A little less dark, but in the same vein, are:
Footfall by Niven & Pournelle
Titan by John Varley
Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke
@piratedan
Please, anything but anime.
SYFY at present seems to have put all their eggs into the Defiance basket. Sigh. At least it’s not Mansquito 6, or something like that.
And don’t get me started on ranting similarly about the History channel.
piratedan
@NotMax: well if you want a network that makes money and appeals to key demographics, you have to bring the appropriate market forces to bear, young dudes who drink beer and do not have active social lives (nerds) watch that stuff and if you confine it to hours like Friday and Saturday nights, you get advertisers. Hell, it’s what Cartoon Network did before they sabotaged they’re own successful business model, they trashed the Toonami stuff that was bringing in adolescent boys (and girls) and started with dreck programming (see previous examples MTV and the History Channel). Just like anything else, there’s good anime and bad anime, if I had the wherewithal to determine what shows were shown it most likely wouldn’t be three hours of Gundam, Dragonball Z or Naruto, probably would lean towards titles like Cowboy BeBop, Trigun and FMA, which at least deal somewhat with science or alternate realities. Naturally YMMV.
NotMax
@piratedan
Personal thing. Just don’t care for the style of anime in more than very small doses.
Please Save My Earth being an exception, when it comes to SF.
(Ain’t no way SYFY would show Urotsukidoji at any hour.)
Darkrose
@joel hanes:
I don’t know if you game, but in Dragon Age II there’s a moment in Act II that’s supposed to evoke shock and horror, when you realize that your mother–the last member of your family who hasn’t died or been taken away–has been turned into a zombie by a crazy mage. You see her lurching toward you and it’s like there’s a giant hammer whacking you over the head while someone yells, “DO YOU GET IT? THIS IS THE LAST MEMBER OF YOUR FAMILY AND SHE’S TOTALLY DEAD BECAUSE YOU DIDN’T GET HERE IN TIME TO SAVE HER. DON’T YOU FEEL BAD? ARE YOU CRYING YET?”
I laughed. Seriously. It was so over the top and obvious, and even if I hadn’t seen it coming since Act I I wouldn’t have been that upset because nothing in the previous 20 hours of the game had given me much reason to care about the character. I was more annoyed with the developers, for writing that thread with the assumption that the players are all complete morons who won’t realize that we’re being emotionally manipulated.
The Red Wedding wasn’t all that much of a surprise to me, especially once I realized I was basically reading the War of the Roses, reskinned. But it felt like I was supposed to be surprised and shocked. I felt like I was being manipulated–more to the point, I was aware that I was being manipulated. Art is designed to elicit an emotional response. I get that. But for something to work for me, I don’t want to see the strings. I also have to care about the characters–positive or negative. I didn’t care about Robb or Caitlyn by that point in the series. They were whiny and annoying and kept taking up page space from the characters I did care about.
piratedan
@NotMax: probably not, but Uchuu Kyoudai would be welcome as well as some other titles. My point is that the genre is robust and has a lot of possibilities (I’m sure that there are authors I still haven’t discovered), anything from Scalzi’s Old Man Universe to Glen Cook’s Black Company and Garrett PI books and a whole boatload of classics inbetween like Zalazny’s Amber Series, Fritz Leibers’ Fafherd and Grey Mouser books, Foundation could finally be done properly, H Beam Piper’s Alternate Universe/Time Travel series, just saying that there’s a LOT of stuff out there that could make for some very interesting properties that could have broader appeal if only someone would bother to make them (see the Vokosigan books by Bujold, The Chanur seriees from Cherryh, the Jim Butcher Dark Fantasy Noir series, etc)
Elias
Just saying that the brutality of GoT has a purpose. If you don’t get it you don’t understand the plot. Even after book 5 I’m still unclear on that. In Tolkein you know from the start that ‘lil Frodo will have to defeat Sauron. The question is what trials will he and his allies face. If you think you understand the basic plot of GoT by season 3, you are sorely mistaken. The POV characters don’t understand it. You’ve met a few who do.
The POV characters are playing the game of thrones but they are nothing more than pawns in a much more important story.
joel hanes
@Darkrose:
Thanks for explicating. I see what you mean, and yes, GRRM’s emotional manipulation is sometimes pretty heavy-handed. So far it’s only really irritated me twice — the way he ended the Arya POV chapter at the end of the Red Wedding felt like an old Hollywood serial cliffhanger, and the ending of another chapter farther on — but these turn out not to be deaths. The wedding itself seems more integral to me: just what one should expect from Walder Frey after he receives a raven from Tywin Lannister..
Robert Sneddon
Listening to George Martin and Gardner Dozois in a late-night/early morning bull session in a convention bar a few years back George was expounding his end game for Game of Thrones to all that would listen.
Everybody dies. The last book was going to be a loving description of the snow blowing over the frozen corpses of everybody you ever read about, cared about, cheered on or hissed at. “It’s my goddam trilogy[0] and I’ll kill anyone I want to!”
[0] This was a few years back.
A Humble Lurker
@Anne Laurie:
Sci-Fi is fantasy that feels the need to explain everything. Which is not true to real life. At least in my experience. I mean nobody knows all the intricate details about how their electronics work. This screen may as well be a magic window into another dimension for all I know how it works.
Joseph Nobles
@The prophet Nostradumbass: I’m going to say Valley Girl for the most part.
Phoenician in a time of Romans
BTW – this http://cheezburger.com/7041605376
RSA
@Someguy:
It’s easy to describe most science fiction in comparable terms: take an exploration or adventure novel of the past 200 years, add in Space to the title, and you have a genre of SF.
Of course, there are many exceptions. (I used to read science fiction, and I still like a lot of it. Sturgeon’s Law still holds.)
On The Game of Thrones, I’m one of those who read the books but haven’t seen the series (no HBO). I liked the first couple, but I don’t think I read the most recent novel; I’d forgotten too much in the time between their publication.
Singular
The acting and direction of the GoT episodes are what raises them way above the books. I stopped reading after book 4, and the whole thing had been frankly turgid for a while.
I thought the Onion was spot on about GRRM. I just wonder how the extremely talented people working on the TV production will handle the worsening material…
jayackroyd
@pokeyblow: There was a long article about this in the New Yorker.
Essentially the argument is they are getting a hard to reach demographic, the head of a household in the top income decile who is willing to pay a high monthly fee for timely access to occasional high quality, high buzz shows.
I think GoT may have extended the HBO reach. We’ve been pretty firmly set on the netflix delay for this stuff. (it’s not, after all, time sensitive.) But there has been talk of subscribing just for GoT…..
jayackroyd
@Singular:
I think you really mean “editing.”
Once these franchises hit these sales levels, I think it gets really hard for the editor to say “Uh, you know, maybe you could tighten this up. You know, like cut it in half.”
Bitter and Deluded Lurker
@jayackroyd: Everybody gets less editing these days. Editors are an expense. Publishers are cheap.
But yeah, GRRM presumably has more pull than most of the other authors out there.
dan
All these people seem to be watching in the daytime.
CaseyL
@Nerdlinger: I’m… not sure how to feel about AMC’s doing Red Mars. They’re right that it’s a character-driven tale, but Mars is one of the characters. Howinhell are they going to portray an epic about terraforming, eco-terrorism, and the political-psychological impact of the Martian landscape without actually showing the Martian landscape??
Also, KSR – and his human characters – spend a lot of time talking. Talking about science; about environmentalism; about terraforming technique; about philosophy; about their own viewpoint, actions, and relationships. Huge dense paragraphs of dialog you need a college-reading level of comprehension, at least, to understand; and without which, the characters’ actions and motivation for their actions make little sense. I don’t see most of that making it into the show.
AMC might surprise me, but I fear they’ll create a Red Mars with very little of what makes it compelling.
dan
@dan: I guess that is because the night is dark and full of terrors.
jayackroyd
@Bitter and Deluded Lurker:
I know editors–which is really a project management job, rather than a word smithing job. They work really hard, collaboratively, with their authors.
Of course this doesn’t apply to franchises, like the Paterson novel factory. It’s interesting to watch a novel, or a series of novels, turn into a franchise. It seems to be invariant–the work gets bloated. Compare the Potters–which wasn’t all that bad on this score.
Bitter and Deluded Lurker
@jayackroyd: There seem to be fewer editors these days, and the ones that are left are working with more authors.
Redshirt
GRRM has no idea what the plot of GoT is either.
I think it will be up to HBO to finish the series.
Uncle Ebeneezer
@Schroedinger- We watched Parade’s End, mainly because my wife loves anything Brittish/PBS with vintage costumes/sets etc. It was worth watching. I enjoyed it as a whole but it was frustrating at times. I have an unexplainable negative reaction to Benedict Cumberbatch. I acknowledge that he’s a talented actor but something about him just irritates me. (I leave the room when my wife watches Sherlock.) Anyways, what was especially frustrating about PE is that his character is stuck in the grasp of trying to maintain nobility and class even when it adversely effects his life in major ways. It’s the type of respect for tradition and the old ways that drives me nuts in the real world when manifested in Conservatism. But the scenery and sets are amazing. The performances are good, especially Rebecca Hall, who is devious and conniving yet frail and vulnerable, and imo sexy as hell. It gets a bit soapy at times but all in all we enjoyed it.
Matt in HB
Not a reader of the books, but very much enjoying the HBO series. I think one angle of the big story that has only really been hinted at is that the whole “game of thrones” and the war for who sits on the iron throne is all pretty pointless in the face of a long winter and white walkers heading south of the wall.
Winter is coming . . . and this one’s gonna be a bitch.
Cluttered Mind
@A Humble Lurker: Ron Moore and his Battlestar Galactica reboot would like to disagree with you on that.
Medicine Man
@Phoenician in a time of Romans:
I more than half agree with you, Phoenician, and I think Anoniminous makes a very good point about the inherently sentimental nature of pop culture storytelling. Much of the shock and betrayal felt over S3E9 is a direct result of those misleading expectations of the GoT story.
I do have a few quibbles and comments I would like to toss out here:
I wouldn’t go so far as to say that Robb Stark and his mother *deserved* their fate in the sense that it was just comeuppance, more that their mistakes caught up to them. Nor do I agree that this was the logical outcome of Robb’s decision to oppose the Lannisters. Tywinn’s weaknesses were exposed pretty early on, while Robb’s became clear over time, but no outcome was predetermined.
Putting a finer point on your argument, I would say that the fate that befell several of the main characters in Ep9 was foreseeable and largely a product of their own past mistakes. In short, their deaths were not Deus Ex Machina, as many seem to think, or just an object lesson from the author.
Let me know if I’m close to your thinking on this.
Phoenician in a time of Romans
@Medicine Man:
I wouldn’t go so far as to say that Robb Stark and his mother *deserved* their fate in the sense that it was just comeuppance, more that their mistakes caught up to them.
That’s the sense I meant it – the story isn’t a moral fable; it’s a clash of competing agendas. Hell, that’s right there in the name. They “deserved” their fate in the same sense that I “deserve” to lose a chess game if I let my queen and king get forked, even if I’m morally superior to my loathsome opponent.
Nor do I agree that this was the logical outcome of Robb’s decision to oppose the Lannisters. Tywinn’s weaknesses were exposed pretty early on, while Robb’s became clear over time, but no outcome was predetermined.
Robb’s major mistake was not to counter Tywin Lannister’s strengths – the political game. As he complained, he kept on winning battles but losing the war. The Lannisters had more raw strength with the resources of Casterly Rock and Kings Landing behind them, and just kept ducking and jabbing, while inflictign misery on the Northern-occupied area to slow him down. Tywin’s strength was shown throughout the series – he just sat on his chuff and wrote letters.
Some of those were obviously to Walder Frey and Roose Bolton.
It’s this failure that bogged the North down. They couldn’t press the attack home decisively. That placed Robb in a static position where he made mistakes over time – executing the Karstarks, marrying Talia – which again sapped away political support. The jackels came out to play – the Ironborn raids and Theon taking Winterfell.
And then the icing on the cake was trusting to Frey’s honor. Hah hah bloody hah on that one.
Medicine Man
@Phoenician in a time of Romans:
I largely agree, though I think the war was more Robb’s to lose than Tywin’s to win. Not that I’m disputing your assessment of Tywin’s strengths; he showed his wits when he switched tactics after the Lannister reversals in the Riverlands and their narrow deliverance at Blackwater. Robb and Cat were only made vulnerable to the plot that killed them after their various errors diminished their strength. The idea of sacking Casterly Rock was a good one (attacking the Lannister’s strengths, as you say) that came too late. Desperation drove them to trust the Frey’s more than they should have (understatement) and I’m sure their diminishing prospects more than half made the case for betrayal to the likes of Roose Bolton, who one can assume was loyal up to a point.
Looking at the bigger picture, it is almost as if Robb’s story is the extension of Ned’s. They both did the most “good” thing at any given moment without considering what was the most “good” thing over the long run. Moral myopia killed them both.
Medicine Man
In spite of everything, I still hold out hope that the Starks will one day extract bloody vengeance. This is surely the stuff that vendettas are made of.
lou
@CaseyL: The first book, Game of Thrones, *is* inspired by the War of the Roses. George R.R. Martin has said so in many interviews.
And the Red Wedding was inspired by the Black Boar Feast massacre.
Martin’s whole purpose was to subvert the fantasy genre by incorporating what really happened in medieval ages, versus the clean and happy version we usually see in fantasy, where good always wins over evil.
DJShay
Sorry, there are tons of reaction vids featuring black viewers too. This particular montage was taken from a Reddit project. @Baud: